Within Time
by It's a dream
Summary: Frightened and shocked was ten year old Zuko as he found himself in another city. But worst is yet to come when he learns he's in the future. After encountering the Gaang, he begs to take him with them. What will the future bring now?


**Full summary:**_  
>Frightened and shocked was young Zuko as he found himself in another city. But the worst is yet to come when he learns that he ended up nearly six years into the future. After suddenly encountering the gaang, he begs to take him with them. Will he eventually join the group as the youngest member? Will he ever meet <em>_**himself**__? More questions are rising, but it'll slowly reveal itself._

* * *

><p><em>Within Time -<em> **Chapter 1: The Unexpected _- _**_永固城_

It was full moon. The bright light of the moon shone through the leaves of the small forest. Some of the Earth Kingdom soldiers rapidly packed up their belongings after guarding Ba-Sing-Se throughout the day and have returned to their home where their wife's and children were waiting for them.

Suddenly, when everyone had left, a hard but short wind appeared. The leaves on the trees were fiercely pulled to the left.

A little further from the forest where a small hill laid with a tree on top of it, began to glow something. The sharp light that had appeared increased within seconds, and it started to shape at a given moment. It ended in the shape of a human being, a child.

The wind slowed down and the light started to diminish and turned slowly into that of a boy, no less than eleven years, perhaps. The boy had his eyes closed while he seated against the big tree, he seemed to be in a deep sleep.

_"Zuko"_

The boy moaned softly as he somehow heard his name. He rolled over and stretched himself extensively over the green grass. He sat down and rubbed his eyes as he softly started yawning. While slowly opening his eyes, the bright golden color of his eyes looked around and began to grow even bigger than they already were. He quickly got up and looked around again in shock.

"W-Where am I?" he whispered to himself. He couldn't believe what he currently saw while gaping around.

Another question struck the boy while his legs started trembling, _'How did I get here?' _he thought.

Zuko was scared, shocked and broken as he gazed around in fear, his eyes set on the many houses in the distance. Green houses. Even though it was dark, the light inside the buildings made the colors visible for him.

Even though it seemed peaceful, yet everything didn't seemed as peaceful as it looked like. Zuko looked up as he heard several times loud noises. Explosions perhaps? He did not know. But it didn't matter to him anyway, he needed to get out of here. He wanted to go home.

So he started running. He had to get out of this place, it was the only thing that kept running through his mind.

Zuko ran down the hill and ran to someplace he didn't knew. He gasped around, looking at the weird houses with green roofs. _'This isn't like home!' _he thought anxious and headed towards something that looked like a monorail.

He blinked a few times as he watched families getting on the train, they looked very rich. He couldn't help thinking about his own parents. His mother who had disappeared for a few months now.. and his father, what would he think now that he'd suddenly disappeared in thin air.

He shook his head bitterly at the thought, this wasn't the time for it. He followed the others and stepped on to the train.

* * *

><p>Zuko walked over to the window and watched the houses drifting by in shock. He wasn't shocked because of the houses, but of something else.<p>

_'Those people, those people weren't firebenders" _he though anxiously.

they were earthbenders, he saw it. They used earthbending to move this train.

An inconvenient expression appeared on Zuko's face. A drop of sweat fell from his forehead slowly and he realized it. He wasn't in the Fire Nation, but in the **Earth Kingdom**.

He placed his two small hands on the window and watched the houses looking richer by the second. He was within the walls of some town in the Earth Kingdom which he did not know, the enemies.

_'inside the walls' _ came to his mind. He remembered uncle Iroh telling him, Azula and his mother about taking Ba Sing Se in a letter before his cousin, Lu Ten died.. and before his mother vanished, and most likely also died.

He shook those thoughts away in pain and glanced over at the walls in the distance, they seemed very strong.

_'Ba Sing Se..' _he thought disbelieving. No, it couldn't be, but, it did looked a bit like it. The way his uncle told him at least. But the young Zuko wasn't sure.

Then, something else came to his mind.

_Enemies.._

He was the enemy here. His eyes immediately glanced down to his clothes. He didn't had the time at all to look at himself after he found out about this sudden change of town. But to his surprise, it didn't looked Fire Nation at all. His clothes were different, he wore green robes. Earth Kingdom.

He would not believe this and shook his head to convince himself that this was all a dream. Some strangers around him glanced over at the boy for a moment and raised their eyebrows at his strange behavior. Not to mention, he was way too young to be walking around this hour.

He quickly snapped at his hair, was is still the same? He slid his hand over his hair, he felt a high belt tied around his hair. _'guess my hair's still the same' _he thought in relieve.

Zuko felt something at his back which he didn't know it was there. He grabbed to his back with his soft hands and felt to his surprise a bag. His eyes widened as he took it off and opened it. His Fire Nation clothes were inside of it, together with his knife he got from Uncle Iroh.

_'How did-'_ he thought inside his mind, but another annoyed thought interjected his first thought _'Whatever, I'll find out myself'_

* * *

><p>The train stopped and Zuko inspected the entire area before he stepped off the train. Everything looked so wealthier than the place he was before. Just like home.<p>

He followed the bricks on the ground and stopped himself when he heard another sound. This one seemed even harder than the first one.

It was somewhere in the same area as he was. It felt like it came from underground, but that was a stupid and impossible things. His fisted his hands and anxiously ran ahead of him.

In the distance, he noticed a very large building, no, it was a palace. But not the palace he knew.

The ground suddenly started to vibrate very hard as he approached the palace. Zuko rapidly crawled to the ground in shock as he gazed down at the ground. This wasn't normal, he thought while pinching his eyes together.

The 'what seemed like an earthquake' kept on for a moment but stopped when another sudden bang was heard. It heard like the sound of thunder.

The ground had stopped shaking. Zuko was silently sitting and awaiting the moment, he wasn't sure if it was really over and wanted to keep on the safe side.

It appeared to be quiet, Zuko went up slowly and looked around. To his surprise there was nobody. He approached the palace and discovered a large white thing that looked like a huge animal.

Zuko stepped closer, he was not frightened. At least, he didn´t wanted to display that. The beast glanced over at the boy and surveyed him, but kept silence as he did.

Zuko blinked in astonishment as he stroked his hands trough his fur, "Wow, you're big!" he said.

The animal growled softly which made Zuko step back in shock for a minute, he thought it was going to attack him. But he later realized it wasn't the case. His first smile crept on his face as he stroked his fur. "You're so soft" he said and walked towards the animals tail.

_'Maybe I can get on here' _he said as he glanced over to the saddle which was on the top of the animal, he really didn't wanted to be seen by anybody and thus grabbed gently to the animals fur and climbed up. Zuko placed his right hand on the top of the saddle and threw his left leg over it.

He noticed how high he actually was on the animal, when he sat on the top of it. He gazed at his head and realized there was a large arrow engraved from the animals tail to its head.

The animal seemed to have no qualms about the fact that he'd crawled on up on his saddle. Maybe he was used to this kind of thing, he thought.

He looked up as he heard some strange noises, it heard like footsteps. Many footsteps.

He bucked down, hoping nobody saw his. He heard the great doors of the palace open, he heard screams and the sounds of sad voices. He crumpled himself like a worm and kept quiet.

"Hurry, before they'll chase us!" he heard a boy cried out loud.

Zuko had commit a few strong swallows. Even though he couldn't see anything, he was sure they were coming his way.

"hurry!" a girls voice said, "I can feel the Dai Li agents coming closer!" she snapped.

"But what about my palace?" A man's voice said, followed by a growl of what heard like a bear.

"We can't! …It's over," the boy's voice said with hints of sorrow, "We need to leave now!"

Zuko started gasping for breath, his hart began racing faster. What would they do if they saw him? Would they kill him? Would he ever return home? Those questions rushed through his head as he snapped his eyes together.

One girl which voice he hadn't heard ran towards him and seemed to be just a few inches away from Zuko. "Appa, get us out of here!" she said and the animal merely groaned

The girl huffed a lot and seemed to be out of total breath, whatever happened wasn't good.  
>Zuko crawled all the way to the upper end of the saddle where the head of the animal was and shrank himself completely in the shadows.<p>

The girl climbed careful onto the saddle. She hadn't realized he was there too. Zuko looked at her, she was crying, her long brown hair was completely scrambled. The girl had her eyes set on the boy who appeared to be unconscious, or maybe worse.

Young Zuko gulped slowly as he watched the pair.

"Quick!" the other girl said. Zuko saw another head popping up and this time it was a boy. He too had not seen him yet. He turned direction to some other persons and helped a man getting on, followed by a bear which made Zuko feel pretty uncomfortable then that he already felt.

At last, a girl jumped from ground level right onto the saddle followed by a small flying animal.

"Appa, yip yip!" yelled the boy from the saddle. The animal called Appa growled and threw his tail against the ground, making the animal fly up high.

Zuko held completely still, he didn't moved an inch, and he also didn't breath, but the short girl, probably around his length noticed him anyway.

She gazed ahead of her, like he hadn't even seen him and said, "We have another visitor" she said.

The boy glanced over to her, then over the_ him_.

Zuko squeaked as his eyes swept to the boy, but kept silence. He noticed all eyes pointed at him, all eyes expect the girl with the brown messy hair who had her attention pointed and the unconscious boy who laid against her legs.

"Who's that small kid?" was all the boy said.

He wanted to say something. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was scared. Who were these people? And why was there a half-dead person in the saddle? Zuko started trembling again. He cried softly as he stuffed his head between his legs. He didn't wanted to see this.

A glimpse of compassion made its way on the older boys face. "Hey I'm-"

He got interjected by the small girl who had laid her hand on his shoulder, "Just let him" she said and received a nod back.

They all kind of ignored the boy who was crying and glanced over at the unconscious kid. The oldest girl grabbed her vial covered with blue prints on it. She opened it and bended the raining water onto the boy of the boy. It started glowing harder and Zuko titled his head a little, he peeked as he saw the glow being pushed on the boys back. She was a waterbender, he thought frightened.

The glowing water mingled with the boy's body and vanished. The boy slowly and feebly opened his grayish eyes, a wearily smile made its way across his face.

The girl made tears of joy as he saw her hugging him carefully, a tear fell from her cheek as she did.

Zuko pulled his head up and looked back from over the saddle. They were already flying over the high walls, they were finally out of that city, he thought. But how did he get home? How did he get back to the Fire Nation?

"I'm sure he'll survive, Katara" the boy said sharply, pulling his sister against him.

Zuko closed his eyes slowly and said no word. But he need to explain himself later right? But how? And more importantly, what just happened to them? All those pitiful looks, that boy. He wondered but the next reaction confirmed it all.

The oldest of them gazed into the direction they'd left, "The Earth Kingdom.. has **fallen**" he said weakly.

Zuko's eyes snapped open.

_'what?'_

* * *

><p><em>Ah, little Zuko's so scared, confused whatever. Please share your thoughts with me :)<em>


End file.
